Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Building a Reporting Tool on Top of Analysis Services: Introduction to Reporting


The information paradigm in the business world has shifted. Nowadays the problem is not the lack of data, but its surplus. Organizations have invested in expensive information systems that are able to feed, on an almost daily base, executives with the sales, stocks and costs figures. Now the question is not how much we are selling or spending but what can we do with the data we have. In other words: “How can we transform data into information and information into knowledge that supports business decisions?”
Data by itself isn't enough to make decisions, it needs interpretation and context. Only after selecting and organizing the right data can we start to produce information and establish the foundation for knowledge. We are now entering the realm of big words like Business Intelligence, Data Mining, OLAP, etc, and although these are very interesting subjects, the next few posts focus on a specific component of BI: Reporting.


1.1       What is Reporting?

According to Ranjan (2008) reporting consists in providing aggregated views of data in order to maintain its users informed about the business performance of their organization. A reporting tool is a graphical interface that allows the user to construct the queries needed to a business report and then build the document presentation. The tool must mask the technical aspects of the query language and allow the management and reuse of periodical reports (Loshin, 2003).
In light of the previous definition, Excel is a reporting tool, since it allows connection to data bases, enables data import and, as a spread sheet software, has all the tools needed to produce professional reports. Although necessary, these characteristics aren’t enough to fulfill all the requirements of a reporting tool.

1.2       What features should a reporting tool have?

The features that follow are proposed by Kumar (s.d.) and partially considered in (Hagerty, et al., 2012) as the criteria to decide between the different BI solutions in the market.
Connection to Data Bases: The reporting tool compatibility with different types of data bases is an important factor.
Schedule and Distribution: There are reports that take considerable time to process and therefore justify scheduling updates. The distribution channels are a big part of the reporting tool and a crucial aspect for its success since they will directly interfere with content management.
Security: In the business world you need to have credentials management since different users have different access to the data base.
Customization: Static reports are rarely a good idea. Users want the ability to change and adapt the reports to their personal needs. The degree of customization is one of the most important aspects when choosing or building a reporting tool.
Export Capabilities: The most common needs consist in exporting to Excel, PDF and non-property files.
Office Integration; The Microsoft’s suite leads the market of productive software and its integration with a reporting tool is usually valued.

1.3       When should a reporting tool be bought or built?

A company doesn't need to buy an entire BI platform, instead it can acquire only the features that are worth the investment and develop the rest in house. Beside the lower costs, this solution has the advantage of creating and keeping behind doors the knowledge needed to improve and adapt the tools to the company’s necessities. However this option isn't advisable for crucial IT infrastructures, like the data warehouse and OLAP systems.
In order to know if a reporting tool should be bought or built, the following factors must be considered:
Number of Reports and Users: If the reporting tool will be used by a big number of people that will request a large amount of reports, then going for a commercial version may be the right decision. This assures better support, a more solid platform and takes advantage of the experience of someone who has already built a lot of reporting tools.
Distribution Channels: If the reports are going to be shared by email or local networks then it’s reasonable to develop the reporting tool. If, on the other hand, content management and synchronized distribution is a major concern then buying makes more sense, since this usually implicates integration with other software.    
Ad hoc Reports: If users must be able to build their own reports then it’s advisable to buy the reporting tool, since the providers of this kind of solutions are more experienced and can predict the most commonly asked features.
Not all reporting tools have a price tag, some are free, but these are usually more limited, don’t support integration with the most common data bases platforms and most come in the form of add-ins to paid software like Microsoft Excel. Free reporting tools should be seen as an additional aid to your reporting repertoire that may provide advance and more specific functions like data mining, reporting templates, etc.  

1.4       Conclusions

Reporting can be a very demanding task according to the business’s complexity it refers to. Furthermore, its boundaries are not always well defined and often business analysts see their tools come short in features needed to support their functions.
It becomes now clear that a reporting tool depends on a big number of variables, from the specificities of the data bases it connects to, to the portfolio of features it must have to satisfy the users’ needs. This usually leads to two things: the reporting tool is acquired as part of a Business Intelligence platform and therefore the integration with other software is assured, or the reporting tool is built and customized to the specific needs of its users. This last option is going to be addressed in the next posts and the reader will gather the basic knowledge to build a reporting tool with the use of Excel. 

Bibliography


Hagerty, J., Sallam, R. L. & Richardson, J., 2012. Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence, s.l.: Gartner.
Kumar, R., n.d. Reporting Solution, s.l.: Binary Semantics.
Loshin, D., 2003. Business Intelligence: The Savvy Manager's Guide. s.l.:Morgan Kaufmann Publishers .
Ranjan, J., 2008. Business justification with Business Intelligence. VINE, Vol.38, pp. 461-475.

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